Tuesday, January 20, 2009

In today's column, I preview the new season of "Lost," which premieres tomorrow night:

How do you feel about time travel, "Lost" fans?

Sure, the dazzling island adventure has dabbled in four dimensions in the past, with the flashes and journeys of consciousness of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick). But as the series' fifth (and penultimate) season begins, it's full-on Marty McFly time, with particle physicist Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) admitting that he might have a hard time explaining some events on the island even to another particle physicist.

And that may finally mean a day of reckoning between those viewers who embrace the show's science-fiction trappings, and those who prefer not to think about them.

You'll note that the column contains some thoughts from "Lost" co-creator and my sometime arch-nemesis Damon Lindelof (pictured, above right, at press tour with Carlton Cuse). We spoke at length last week about last season, this season, and how the worst episode in "Lost" history may also have been the most important episode in "Lost" history (from a production standpoint, anyway), which means its full transcript time, after the jump...

What material did you have to leave out because of the strike that you won't be able to get back to?

I don't think that there's anything that just got basically junked. There's stuff that got truncated, so you're getting the Cliff's Notes version of the story. Whereas there might have been an entire episode that was Charlotte's flashbacks if there hadn't been a strike, now you get the story but not the flashbacks. I think the complete jettisoning of a story plan would take the whole Jenga tower down. We have to do all that stuff to get to where we're going. Nothing was so expendable that you could just say we couldn't get to do this. The show would suffer for it. But the Michael story, we wanted to do something that was more redemptive for him than staying with the bomb and allowing Jin to get to the deck as he was spraying liquid nitrogen onto it. But it ended up having to be that, as opposed to something that was probably more heroic, more emotional, by virtue of the fact that we had to collapse our time frame. Originally, we were going to do an hour less than we wound up doing, and we had to beg for that. We were still rolling film, like, 11 days before it was on the air. It was all we could do to cram everything in there, and you go, "What are the major story points you can play?" and you need to connect the dots. The primary story focus was on the Oceanic Six, and everyone else had to defer. We had to explain how Jin died, and so that gave us less time for Michael's redemptive arc, and we regret that.

One of the things you and Carlton talk about a lot, and I never quite understood until we got to "There's No Place Like Home," is that you're always afraid of doing these episodes where people stand around and explain stuff and you give a lot of answers at once. Those three hours answered most of the questions of that season, and while it was good, it definitely felt like, "Okay... okay... alright..." It was not as thrilling as the hours leading up to it.

Sure. For us, we always think the reason that the show is a water cooler show, or still generates the audience it does and the Internet culture that it does is the audience wants to talk about the show. If the characters are talking about the show, you basically have a scenario where they're so interested in catching each other up that you can't propel the story forwards. Now if they need to share info for the purposes of story, then you have to write the scene. But the season four finale was really about bringing everything together. The drama of knowing, "How are these guys going to get off the island?," well, you've known that they did get off since the end of season three, so now we're just going back and showing you things you didn't already know about it, like that Penny picked them up. It's a big reveal, but everything else is, "Oh, they're in a helicopter... the helicopter's going into the water... is Demond going to survive because he's not one of the Oceanic Six?" So you can kind of do these things, but things like the press conference, Kate having dreams about Claire, you need to do them, but they're more about filling in blanks than moving forward. That's the nature of the year. You're telling a story out of sequence, and so the finale wound up being a lot of middle.

Let's get back to the question that I asked at the summer tour: Watching last season and seeing the Oceanic Six in the present, I start building up scenarios in my head. "Why these six? Why do they have to be so secretive?" And in the end it just turned out that those happened to be the ones who were on the helicopter, and Jack, for whatever reason, gets into his head that they need to tell this specific lie to avoid the wrath of Widmore. Did you know that was how it was going to play out going in?

We knew that the season was going to start with Locke and Jack splitting up, Locke taking a group of people with him, Jack a group with him, Jack group's mission was to get off the island, Locke's group mission was to stay on, and when we got to the end of the season, Jack and Locke would have one more scene. And in that scene, Locke would basically say to Jack, "We're supposed to be here, it's our destiny, you've gotta stay." And Jack would say, "(Bleep) you, I'm leaving." And Locke would say to Jack, "If you're gonna leave, you have to lie." So the idea to lie is Locke's. That we knew with great specificity. We also knew for over a year that Locke was in the coffin and that all the actions Jack is going through in the season three finale, reading the obituary, suicide attempt, are in the wake of Locke's death. The Jack/Locke of it all was incredibly mapped out in detail. The intricacies of the lie were, Jack is lying because Locke told him to, and there's a part of him that realizes maybe Locke was right. He's not consciously ready to accept that yet, so the lie's going to be sloppy, and he's making that up on the fly...

I pitched to the DVD team that it might be fun to have a documentary crew poke holes in how (bleepy) the lie is, on every level. You see those things about the WTC, on that trajectory. I thought it would be fun, but these guys came back with the film and I was, like, "Wow, the lie's even worse than I thought." It's one of those things where you basically say, if this really happened, if these six people showed up on some island in the South Pacific and said, "Here's what happened," no one would ever think to question the story. If there's any conspiracy, you have to start with the premise, "Why did they lie?"

How did you choose the Oceanic Six?

We basically looked at it as a very simple equation first, which is, "Who would want to leave the island, and who would not want to leave the island?" and that's what the whole season's about. Kate kind of waffles, Sawyer doesn't want to leave the island, and leaps off the chopper when he has a chance to do so. He's perfectly fine where he is. And clearly someone like Juliet would want to leave the island, so we had to figure out geographically, where people would want to be, and present a lifeboat situation where Billy Zane's running around the Titanic with a gun, and it's whoever can get on the chopper in time. Jack and Kate we had committed to, obviously, but when we talked about who the Six would be, we realized the majority of storytelling in season four would involve those people. But we were also setting things up for the ultimate endgame of the show which will hopefully reveal some more specificity about, "Why them?"

I've wondered about the team from the freighter, Faraday and those people. When we initially see them being put together, Naomi's supposed to lead them, they have some specific mission that apparently requires a mercenary, a physicist, a medium and an anthropologist and a chopper pilot. Are we still going to find out what that was? Did that get left by the wayside by the events of season four?

The intent was that their mission was to find Benjamin Linus, then call the mercs and they'll show up and remove Ben. But Faraday and Charlotte are both there for personal reasons. He's doing time/space experiments while he's there, Faraday has a lot of story yet to reveal. As does Charlotte, as does Miles. But the mission they've been tasked with to find Ben.

And this particular combination is the best Widmore could put together?

One would assume Miles was selected for his unique abilities. As to why Faraday comes, I think that the strategic thinking in sending those guys over first is, Faraday is the one who can figure how to get from the freighter to the island safely. Charlotte's an expert in anthropology and dead languages, and Widmore thinks that skill-set would be useful for locating Ben for some reason. Hopefully, once you have all the information from season five, that will not be as much of an unanswered question, and you'll have a little information as to why those people.

Time travel plays a big part in this season... This gets back to what I'm always asking you about: long-term planning. Obviously, some things get changed on the fly depending on what's working and what isn't, but did you know from the start how important time travel would be to the show, or is that something that evolved?

We were being asked, certainly as far back in season two, "Are you guys ever going to do time travel on the show?" And we responded, "Who says we haven't already?" The time travel elements of the show have been built into the DNA of the show all along.

Obviously, the big question going into this year is this idea of, there's only two fundamental approaches to time travel. There's the "Back to the Future"/"Heroes" approach where you can go back and change things, that stepping on a butterfly, suddenly, there's a different president, people have anetnna, George McFly's a best-selling author. And the other way is, if you went back in time and tried to kill Hitler, you would fail, because Hitler wasn't assassinated. What would happen if you were in the past and tried to change the present as you knew it, would you A)Fail, or B)Succeed, or C)Cause the thing you were trying to prevent. And that's really interesting to us, because there's no (do-over's).

You've been covering the show since the very beginning. There's been this very interesting thing for me, in terms of certain audience's members to grasp the idea that they're not watching a genre show. To them, I'm like, "What show were you watching? When the big column of smoke is in Eko's face in season two and he stares it down and it retracts into the jungle, that's not a genre show?" And they say, "No, it's not." And it makes you go, "Okay, this is how there can be both evolutionists and creationists." You can take the same data and apply it to your own spectrum. You can go, "Oh, it's not a genre show, because I don't like genre shows, but I like 'Lost.' Therefore, 'Lost' is not a genre show." That's the logic they apply. Well, we've been writing a genre show from the word go. We're sorry that it's getting more genre.

The biggest audience that ever watched the show was the premiere of season two, where we revealed that Desmond was down in the hatch pushing the button every 108 minutes because he's told the world will end. The show had a critical mass at that point, we'd just won the Emmy, people were talking about it, and they tuned in to see, 'What is this thing?" And they saw that, and went, "Alright, it is exactly what I thought it was. No thank you. Not for me."

But there's been a steady attrition over the years, because the show demands that you watch every episode. And Lord knows, I wish there was a way we could do the show where the casual viewer could come along, but once you start writing for those people, the long-term fans will (bleeping) kill you, as well they should. We always thought it would be a cult show, and that's the show we've been writing. But the fundamental strength of the characters -- and our ability to say, "Nobody's perfect, we've made mistakes, we'll continue to make them" -- as long as everyone's acting in a way that makes sense, even when the story doesn't entirely make sense, you can understand why they're behaving the way they are. If you introduce a time travel element on the show, maybe one character will say, "I don't want to be on the time travel show. I don't like time travel." That might make it more palatable to those viewers who don't like it, either.

And the other thing is, nothing on "Lost" lasts forever. These are books in a series of six books. If season five gets a bit too far out there in terms of its genre for you, it's just 17 hours in the grand mosaic of the show. Our hope is that, I feel like the greatest achievement that the show could have in terms of its legacy value, is that, 10 years from now, there'll be an active debate about what were the best and worst seasons of the show, and two people will be able to say to each other, "My favorite season was this season," and the other would say, "That's my least favorite season! It was terrible!" And they'd still be fans of the show as a whole.

Let me put it to you this way, then: Up until the time you cut the deal to end the show (after season six), you and Carlton had to write not knowing when you could move certain stories forward. If you'd somehow known going in that it would be six years and out, what things would you have done differently in those first three years?

It's a question that's impossible to answer, because that wasn't the condition of it. I think there probably would have been less internal pressure to introduce new characters into the show, but at the same time, new characters make it fresh. What would the show be without Ben and Juliet as series regulars? I think many shows that are on the air for a long time require a certain degree of cast turnover. We were certainly going to be killing people off and you then need to bring new people in.

But I think there would have been a lot more confidence in the storytelling, particularly in season's two and three. There's a stutter-step feel to season two and the first part of season three where you'd take two steps forward and one step back and one step forward. Even though the storytelling was emotionally-based, we'd realize that we didn't need to do 25 episodes in a year, we only needed to do 17. For us, the big win wasn't just setting an end date; it was also that the remaining seasons would have a reduced episodic order, so you could never get to a point where you're like, "Wow, we really want to activate the endgame of the season, but we're seven episodes away from that, so we need to just do a rollicking boar-hunting episode."

That being said, some of my favorite episodes of the show are ones like Hurley in the van. Which doesn't advance the plot in any way at all, except that they find Ben's dad, that's cool, but did you really need any of it?

No, but it's a really good episode.

A good episode of "Lost" is not necessarily one that gives you major plot revelations. It's one that works emotionally and kind of justifies its own existence. And there's some episodes that never needed to have existed.

I think that's what would have been different. If we'd known we could be six and out, we wouldn't have done 25-pisode seasons, the narrative would have been a lot tighter, but I wonder if those episodes like finding the Dharma bus would have existed. So I don't know that I would go back and change it.

Not only was it a good episode, but it sets up that wonderful moment in "Through the Looking Glass" where Hurley saves the day with the magic bus.

That's right. That was all (Edward) Kitsis and (Adam) Horowitz (who wrote "Tricia Tanaka Is Dead"), that pitch. They were saying, "Well, Hurley finds this bus and then uses it to save them in the finale."

What's interesting is, it's almost a time travel conundrum, which is, if I could go back in time and be more convincing about saying, 'I will write this pilot, but we need to be six years and out,' and therefore those episodes don't get written, would I do it? The answer is no. The journey is the journey. But more importantly, if "Stranger in a Strange Land" -- which, universally, is (considered) the worst episode we ever produced -- had not been produced, we would not have been able to convince the network that, "This is the future of the show: how Jack got his tattoos. Everything we've been saying for two years about what's to come, is now all here on the screen. You argued that an hour of Matthew Fox in emotionally-based conflicts, it doesn't matter what the flashback story is, it'll be fine. But now that we're doing his ninth flashback story, you just don't care."

We can't go back and apologize for the creative mistakes that we made, because we had to make them. If that episode hadn't been made, we weren't able to get a notes call that said, "We don't like this episode," and where we could then say, "We don't like it, either, but it's the best we can do if we're not moving the story forward. And we're now at a point, guys, where we can't move the story forward." And they asked, "Well, what would you do if we allowed you an end date?" And we said, "Give us an end date, and we'll tell you what we'll do." And the conversations then reached a new pitch.

Everything has to happen the way it happened.

You brought up the introduction of Ben before, and people who are agnostic to atheistic about the idea of a master plan will say, "Well, geez, they hired (Michael) Emerson to be a day player for an episode or two, and now he's the fulcrum of the show." Could you clarify?

We have plans, but the big plans have trap doors. Basically, the plan on the table was Rousseau captures the leader of The Others, but doesn't know who he is. She turns him over to Sayid, Sayid tortures him, he claims he's a balloonist, it's a case of mistaken identity, and it becomes a David E. Kelley story of "Will Sayid believe him or will he not?" It'll be a three-episode arc, at the end they'll realize he was lying all along and he'll escape. That was the plan all along. The trap door of the plan is that, once it's revealed that he's an Other, he'll admit to it and talk about the leader of The Others being a great man, in the third person. So if the actor is awesome, he's referring to himself. But if the actor is not awesome, he'll just be a lieutenant. He'll go running off, or get killed, and we'll meet the actual leader of The Others in the finale of this season when Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Hurley are double-crossed by Michael. We already had the spinal surgery story in our back pocket, and that's where the story was going. Emerson basically, not quite guaranteed, that the story ballooned from a three-episode arc to a six-episode arc that tied into Michael's return and the killing of Ana-Lucia.

At the beginning of the year, we have all these ideas, but we're writing a script every eight days. I love that people think we're smart enough -- I understand why there are atheists and agnostics out there, because they believe in a subjective reality of it. They believe that JK Rowling outlined all seven Harry Potter books because she had unlimited time, nobody to answer to and an unlimited budget. She could make her characters do whatever she wants. WE can't make our characters do whatever we want; our characters are played by actors. if we were just writing a novel, "Lost" would be uncompromised in its vision, and probably a lot worse than it's been for being realized by a cast and crew of 500 who helped realize it in their own separate ways. The idea that Michael Emerson, the way he played Ben, is more Napoleonic -- when you had thought of the leader of The Others, you thought of a big scary dude, and the fact that it's him is fascinating. Which was our thinking when we cast him. We cast the leader of The Others, but we didn't commit to it until Michael said, "You guys got any milk?"

Okay, lightning round. The story keeps moving forward, and therefore there are certain things you might never get back to. You don't have to tell me what the answer is to any of these mysteries, just whether they'll come up again

Okay

The four-toed foot?

You will see it again.

Why Libby was in the hospital with Hurley?

Hopefully, but contingent on factors beyond our control.

What happened between Alex and Rousseau during the brief period between their reunion and their deaths? Or was that another casualty of the episodes you lost to the strike?

Nope. Casualty.

Will we ever find out why Dharma (or someone else) is still making supply drops to the island?

I sure hope so.

Will the superpowers (or lack thereof) of Others like Ethan (superstrong and/or healing factor?) and Richard (immortal?) ever be clarified or explained?

Ethan works out a lot. And everyone heals fast on the island. Hasn't Sawyer been shot like, fourteen times by now?

31 comments:

I probably don't say it enough, but- Alan, you are the man. You asked so many questions of Lidelof that I and other "skeptics" have brought up in the Lost comments over the seasons concerning the series and our doubt about the "master plan", and for that I say thanks and offer my appreciation.

As for Lidelof's answers, they were about what I expected - vague and very "spinny". It's like watching the spin room after the presidential debates, where party reps steadfastly stick to their talking points and perspective as being undeniably correct, and find wordy ways to dodge a direct answer while slipping in their own agenda.

I think you did your best to give "my" ("our"? "the skeptics"?) side a chance to get direct answers about long term concerns we still harbor, but understandably maintained civility if the answers given didn't clarify the situation as much as it could. Nevertheless, it's stuff like this that makes me feel good about any time spent reading your blog and commenting here, since doing so is rewarded by having you remember us and our concerns when given the chance to speak to showrunners. You are the man.

Thanks, guys. I will say that, like Neil, talking with Lindelof actually did fill me with some confidence about the existence of the master plan, and also to explain away some of the irritating parts of seasons two and three.

The "Stranger in a Strange Land" anecdote makes it pretty clear that it was ABC, and not Cuse and Lindelof, who were so insistent on continuing the show's traditional structure past the point of diminishing returns, which tracks very well with what I know about the ongoing creative struggles between various showrunners and their network bosses.

I didn't go into great detail in my first post. I too loved the part about the master plan. The one thing that fascinates me about series with involved plots is the question over how much the creators envisioned from the beginning, LOST the most.

I would love it if Damon, Carlton and JJ created a tell-all when the series ends. If there were a documentary or book detailing what the creators knew, and when, it would be a must-buy.

"Any idea what he meant by this? Please tell me he was not talking about Loose Change."

On the season four DVDs, there is a 20-minute fake documentary that claims the whole Oceanic Six thing is a conspiracy. It uses physics experts that claim it is impossible for the plane to remain intact, or nutrition experts to claim that the survivors should have been in different conditions, etc. I think he was referring to the type of conspiracy films that exist on the WTC, not that he believed those films.

After getting cranky-pants over the Diablo Cody interview, I've got to go with the herd and say this was well done. (And if you're still lurking, Mo, same to you.) I don't think I'm the only person who gave up during season three, and to give credit where credit's due Lindelof and Cuse have pulled off the most impressive resurrection since Lazarus.

But I still get enormously frustrated that they're still saying things like "We're sorry that it's getting more genre" -- even if there's a heavy element of snark involved. I don't know about anyone else, but I've never noticed American primetime schedules being awash is documentary neo-realism (and I'd argue even so-called 'reality shows' are as surreal and stylised as a kabuki play).

I happen to be re-reading Michael Chabon's 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union', which is a wonderful exercise in alternate world SF and a knowing homage to the 'hardboiled' pulp fiction of Raymond Chandler and and moving examination of a man dealing with an absent father and a failed marriage every bit as deep as the relationships in Chabon's more 'mainstream' work.

But more important, it's a bloody fine piece of writing whose author is utterly unapoligetic about the genre elements in his own work. Chabon's also been an articulate de-bunker in his non-fiction of genre snobbery. As the late Sir Kingsley Amis -- no slouch about crossing lines between 'high' and 'low' himself -- once said: "Importance isn't important, good writing is."

But I still get enormously frustrated that they're still saying things like "We're sorry that it's getting more genre"

It's not always easy to convey tone in text, but Lindelof was being very snarky when he said that, as he's exasperated that there are still people who watch the show yet are in denial about all the skiffy elements.

Craig: the thing about the genre comments, though, is that they're not talking to you or I. I'm absolutely on board for the show going more genre, but there are a lot of people who might not be. Extreme time travel elements could really frustrate people who have a genre bias and only watch to see Sawyer with his shirt off (or Juliet in a tank top). A show being surreal and stylized is one thing, but some people just don't do sci-fi, no matter how well written it is.

I recently found out that a friend of mine hated the X Files because "alien stuff is stupid." Some people might tune out when the sci-fi stuff ramps up, and I can't blame Lindelof or Cuse for apologizing to those people. We're getting to the point where the genre elements will have to start taking center stage, and that's bound to piss off the people who preferred to ignore them.

You did a fine job of getting the tone across, and it was crystal clear from the context anyway. I was just venting.

I remember reading an interview with Tim King before the premiere of season two of Heroes, and he spent most of it bending over backwards saying the show "isn't really" sci-fi. If he didn't have a network PR flack holding a taser to his nads, I've got to wonder how fraking stupid he thinks viewers really are. I prefer Chabon's "the work is what it is, and if you don't like it -- well, you can't be all things to all people" attitude.

Fair comment, well put. I didn't start getting into Deadwood until around halfway through the second season -- and even then it look a lot of positive word of mouth from people I trust -- because I'm just not that into "westerns". So, I get that SF/fantasy isn't everyone's cup of tea; and there are some people who are never going to go for anything with that label attached.

But as my late Nanna used to say, "If you try to be all things to all people, you just end up being nothing to nobody." As show runners, Lindelof and Cuse definitely have a responsibility (and enlightened self-interest) in making the show appeal to as large an audience as possible. But -- as they touched on in the interview with Alan -- I suspect it isn't 'genre elements' that are the real problem, but the fact 'Lost' is the most heavily serialised show on television. I really love long-form storytelling, but I don't see how a new viewer could get into 'Lost' at this point without going to ground with a stack of DVD's and a twenty gallon drum of speed. :)

I really love long-form storytelling, but I don't see how a new viewer could get into 'Lost' at this point without going to ground with a stack of DVD's and a twenty gallon drum of speed.

Cuselof (or Darlton, or whatever you want to call them) are aware of that, too. Somebody asked them about it during the press tour session, and they said it's a drawback of the format, but occasionally they can do an episode like "The Constant" that's relatively accessible to newcomers (my wife had never watched an episode before and she cried at the end) and potentially good enough that they'd go back to the beginning with the DVDs to catch up.

But as my late Nanna used to say, "If you try to be all things to all people, you just end up being nothing to nobody." As show runners, Lindelof and Cuse definitely have a responsibility (and enlightened self-interest) in making the show appeal to as large an audience as possible.

Your late Nanna sounds like a smart lady. As far as giving the show a wide appeal is concerned, I feel like Lindelof and Cuse have gone about that the right way. I think they did a great job establishing the characters before heading into the sci-fi deep end, where they might lose some viewers. There's always been a strong sci-fi element present on LOST, and I think that all they really need to do is keep on keepin' on. Keep the characters interesting and as you said (more or less), hopefully good writing will win over people with genre issues.

Oh, and as a side-note, I just got Yiddish Policeman's Union recently and look forward to reading it. It's my first by Chabon.

I really love long-form storytelling, but I don't see how a new viewer could get into 'Lost' at this point without going to ground with a stack of DVD's and a twenty gallon drum of speed.

Well, I'll use myself as an example. I started watching the show last season without ever watching a whole episode of the show previously (I did catch about the last half hour of the season 3 finale while channel surfing), and I still enjoyed the hell out of it. Whenever there was some major plot point I didn't understand, I simply looked it up on Wikipedia or something. It wasn't difficult at all. As the new season approaches, I still haven't watched seasons 1-3, but I don't expect my enjoyment to be all that effected. It's a well-written, well-acted, handsomely made show. Even if I couldn't make heads or tails of all the mythology stuff, I'd still probably enjoy it.

I think he was referring to the type of conspiracy films that exist on the WTC, not that he believed those films.

Okay, whew. I just read that and I was like, "Please, no, not you too, Damon..." Guess I need to pick up the season 4 DVD!

Oh, and thanks, Alan. It's tough to get anything out of these guys -- and I understand why that is, the tightrope they have to walk -- but you always get some good stuff out of them.

P.S. Another vote for The Yiddish Policeman's Union. Chabon is amazing. He packs more information in the first page of that novel than most writers can manage in a chapter, and yet it's not confusing or overly expository. He does an amazing job of creating this alternate world.

I started watching the show last season without ever watching a whole episode of the show previously (I did catch about the last half hour of the season 3 finale while channel surfing), and I still enjoyed the hell out of it. Whenever there was some major plot point I didn't understand, I simply looked it up on Wikipedia or something. It wasn't difficult at all.

That's good to hear, Andrew, but I think you're probably the exception to the rule. Most people don't want to have to go to Wikipedia to be able to follow a show.

Great Interview as always Allen. The explanation of having a "master plan" while also having a central figure on the show, Ben, start out a a bit player has been something bothering me for quite some time.

I know this is wayyyy off topic, but since we haven't been getting that free post to bring up random questions like you promised ;). Maybe some one could answer this question for me.

Did men in the 1960's not wear wedding rings? I re watched mad men over winter break, and not one of the hitched men on the show wears one.

I really love long-form storytelling, but I don't see how a new viewer could get into 'Lost' at this point without going to ground with a stack of DVD's and a twenty gallon drum of speed.

No real need for DVDs when all the episodes of all four seasons are still available in full on ABC's web site. I never watched a single episode of seasons 1-3 when they aired but started watching from the beginning online a few weeks before season four. Fully addicted to the show now, though three years late, and it didn't take a twenty-gallon drum of anything.

Holy cow, all four seasons are on ABC's site? I knew that a big bunch were there but I didn't realize they're ALL there. Wild.

I watched a bunch of season 4 eps recently in HD on ABC's site and they looked fantastic on my computer. I had to endure a few commercials, but better that than shelling out for DVDs. Which I'm sure I'll want when they do the inevitable HD Dharma Pak of all six seasons some day...

Great interview, Alan. Thanks for posting it! Although, if you ever get a chance to ask them important matters again, can you do me a favor and confirm my theory that Vincent is truly behind everything? ;)

Re: alex & Rousseau -- they could show a quick flashback scene of them together, reunited, just before is shot when they get back to Rousseau, who we all know is still alive. It would be good as it would show her motivation for her actions going forward, and I think we need it after spending four seasons with this lady on her journey to get her daughter back.

Re: alex & Rousseau -- they could show a quick flashback scene of mother and daughter together, reunited, just before Rousseau is shot, when the show gets back to Rousseau's character - who we all know is still alive. It would be good as it would show her motivation for her actions going forward on the show, and I think we need it after spending four seasons with this lady on her journey to get Alex back.

Great interview- and really interesting that the previous commenter brings up David Lynch. I don't think it's saying to much to say that shows like Lost owe a great deal to shows like Twin Peaks. David Lynch made it acceptable to create an admittedly very different show that hinged on small plot details that demanded attention from the show's followers.

I really think that Lost is a new version of that- a smart, very detailed but also very intelligent show that doesn't cater to the casual viewer, but has drawn a very strong, dedicated cult following.